Chaja Hoffman's Roots

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Chaja Hoffman

RelatioNet HO CH 15 CZ PO
Chaja Hoffman

Interviewer: Keren Meir

Email: kerenm_or@walla.co.il
Address: Tel Aviv, Israel

Survivor:

Code: RelatioNet HO CH 15 CZ PO
Family Name: Hoffman First Name: Chaja
Father Name: Moshe Mother Name: Eva
Birth Date: 12/03/1915
Town In Holocaust: Czestochowa / Mirowska Country In Holocaust: Poland
Profession (Main) In Holocaust: worked in the family chocolate and candy factory until 1942. Between 42' - 43': worked in the ghetto - in Hasag armament factory. She cleaned bullet casings and cannon casings in order to recycle them.

Review:

Chaja Hoffman was born on 12/03/1915 in Czestochowa, Poland, to Eva and Moshe Jurysta. They were 7 children in the family - 2 sisters and 5 brothers: Avraham, Yitzchak, Leah, Ya'acov, Leon, Zamol and Chaja (the youngest). Chaja was 16 years younger than the eldest brother, Avraham. The family lived in Aleja Najswietszej Maryi Panny No.5, Czestochowa. They had a chocolate and candy factory, "Jurysta" (next to the house, at No. 3). The factory was very successful and people from all over Czestochowa (Jewish and non Jewish) came to buy there.

Shown in the picture below: The Jurysta family

Chaja's perents were religious, very rich, high class Jews. They had a maid (who had to be Jewish), wore fur clothes, and they used to go every year to a resort. Her father donated handsomely to charity.

Shown in the picture above: The logo of the factory.

Chaja grew up as a princess, and had all the things a girl could desire. She went to the kindergarten and after that to school - it was a mixed school (boys and girls together). Chaja had hobbies. She sang, played the mandolin for a while, at the age of 14 or 15, and also participated in gymnastics - on a vaulting horse.

The Jurysta family

After she graduated from school, she didn't need to work in order to support herself. She didn't go to the university. Her brother, an excellent student, tried to apply to the university, but the Polish refused to accept him as a student. Instead, Chaja had a good time with her friends and went to parties. The parties didn't take place in her house, since her parents were religious. She also spent time with her boyfriend, Władek (ze'ev), who later became her husband. They went to the cinema and had a place they liked to go to, in which they could eat cookies.

Shown in the picture: Chaja and Władek in Czestochowa.

Every Friday night, which is Shabat's eve, the family had a festive dinner, in which all the family had to be present.

Before Chaja and Władek met, they went to the same school. Władek was about 10 or 11 years old and they didn't know each other. Years later, Chaja's friend was having a birthday party, and both Chaja and Władek were there. He invited her to dance, and afterwards they went home. Władek asked Chaja where does she live, and she said she lived right in the house opposite to the house where the party was taking place). Władek took Chaja home, and she told him she lived upstairs, in the second floor.

*press the mic. in order to listen to Chaja.

The next day, or a few days later, he came and called her from downstairs: "Hella, Hella!" (that was her name in Polish). She went to the window and told him she will be right down, and then her mother told her: "Chaja'le (that was her Yiddish nickname), tell the guy that if he wants to see you, he should come up. It isn't appropriate to shout from downstairs".

So, Władek came up - and the rest is history...

Shown in the picture: Chaja and Władek (Hoffman)

World War II broke in 1939. Czestochowa was occupied by the Germans. They replaced the Jewish owners of all factories with German owners/foremans or with Poles who cooperated with the Germans.

Chaja worked at the family factory between 1939 - 1942. The factory was closed in 1942.

Chaja and Władek got married in their house in Czsetochowa on April 9th, 1940, during the war.

Shown in the pictures: Chaja and Władek's wedding (above), Chaja and Władek's marriage certificate (below).

*The article below was published in the newspaper in May 2005, in honor of the Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day. The article tells the story of several Israeli children who travelled with their parents to visit their families in Poland during the World War, and were stranded in the Holocaust. One of those children was four year old Dalia Golan, Chaja's nephew (the daughter of Chaja's brother Ya'acov), who went with her parents to visit the family in Czestochowa and couldn't come back to Israel until the end of the war. As a result, she was present in Chaja's and Władek's wedding.

You are welcome to read her story (in the yellow frame).

Shown in the Picture above: Chaja's and Władek's wedding. In the circle is Dalia Golan as a child, and in the square in the left corner - Dalia Golan today.

In September 1942, the Nazis decided to send the Jews in Czestochowa to extermination camps (the Final Solution). The Jews of Czestochowa were sent to Treblinka, and among them were Chaja's parents, as well as Władek's father (all in the same transport, September 1942). Władek's mother died earlier, before the war. This transport took place at Yom Kippur's eve (Day of Atonement) or at the end of Yom Kippur. The Nazis took the Jews to the trains with their Tallith (Prayer Shawl), in the middle of the prayer. At that time the Jews didn't pray in the synagogues anymore, but only in their houses' courts.

Shown in the picture: Władek's father

Władek presented himself as a carpenter (in fact, his father was a carpenter). As a result, during the war, Władek worked at a furniture warehouse. He had to repair the furniture which were taken from Jewish homes to the warehouse. He heard from a friend - a German guard whom they bribed, that the Jews were being exterminated. So he ran at once to take Chaja from the family factory in order to save her. Władek took Chaja and hid her among the furnitures. Until now Chaja feels guilty for not taking her parents with her, but it was impossible to take them with her: It was all done very fast and there was a great mess, and her parents were already pretty old. As a result, they were taken to Treblinka. Apparently, there were other workers who took their wives and hid them in the midst of the furnitures as well.

Shown in the picture: a last farewell letter in Yiddish which Chaja's parents wrote to their children. They managed to deliver it just before they got on the train to Treblinka. Eventually, Chaja and Władek received it, and Władek kept it folded in the pocket of his shirt till the end of the war.

After the deportation of the mass of the Jews to Treblinka, the number of the Jews in Czestochowa decreased, and a small ghetto was built (In April 1941, the Nazis built a big ghetto, which included the Jewish quarter. However, since the number of Jews decreased at the end of 1942, they decided to gather them into a small ghetto). This ghetto was built in the area where the poor people lived.

Shown in the picture: Chaja's mother, Eva.

After Władek saved Chaja, they lived in the small ghetto till 1943. The ghetto was very crowded, and many people lived in the same apartment or in small rooms. There were arguments about where will one live - just in order not to sleep out in the snow.

Chaja and Władek, Chaja's brother, Leon, his wife, Stepha, and the rest of the family lived together in the small gettho. At times Leon came back from work all beaten up (40 lashes with a whip on his back). Chaja and Stepha would clean his back from the blood with snow, since they didn't have running water.

Between 1942 - 1943, Chaja went to work every day in Hasag armament factory, which was about 7 km away from town. Chaja cleaned bullet casings and cannon casings (40 mm) with steel brushes, in order to recycle them. She got up every day at 05:00 AM. they would stand in the street in groups of five, and then they were marched several kilometers to the factory, in harsh weather conditions, escorted by Nazi soldiers with dogs, sticks and guns who were yelling at them. Władek worked as a carpenter in the ghetto. He would go every day from the small ghetto to the carpentry shop, which was out of the ghetto.

In the gehtto, Chaja and Władek met a Jew named Zidman, who knew a Pole named Bojak, who was the foreman of the ghetto. This foreman connected them with someone who had a villa out of town. They could hide there, in a basement this man built specially for them, on the condition they paid him 250,000 Złoty, which was a very large sum of money.

Władek managed to smuggle Chaja and 7 more people in a carriage of furnitures from the ghetto to this man's house (the 7 other people were: Leon and Stepha; David and Rachel Schlesinger, who were a couple of friends they met in Hasag; Meir and Hela Sternberg, who were friends with the Schlesingers; and the brother of Meir Sternberg, Simcha, whose wife was murdered earlier). They all paid the Polish landlord using the money they earned from the chocolate factory. Chaja's father had all this money in cash, dollars and gold. Before Chaja's parents were sent to Treblinka, Chaja's father told Leon that he marked a spot on the wall in the basement, under their house, where he had hidden jars with gold bars and dollars.

Chaja and Władek hid in this house for 3 months, with the 7 people Władek managed to smuggle out of the ghetto. They lived in a basement, with walls which were made of soil. It was very cold inside, and Germans were patrolling outside.

Chaja, 1932

One day, they had soup, and while Stepha was eating it, she suddenly felt she was turning blind. She warned the others: "don't eat the soup! It's poisoned". Chaja also tasted it and her eyesight got blurred. Apparantely, the Polish landlady wanted to poison them.

It must be emphasized, that any person who hid Jews risked his life. If he had been caught, he would have been killed by the Germans on the spot.

The people who hid Chaja, Władek and the rest, were very afraid of being caught, and although they charged money for the use of the house, they eventually wanted to kill the Jews.

The group didn't eat the soup, and also didn't say anything to the landlady, but they realized that they had to escape.

One of the Sternberg brothers came up with an idea. He told the others that his father sold fish in town before the war. He used to buy the fish from two Polish fishermen, Leon and Edek Konarski, who lived in a village called Mirow. Sternberg suggested that they should speak with the fishermen, and maybe they will agree to hide them in the village (since they were good friends of the Sterenbergs).

In order to speak with Konarski, someone had to go to the village. Władek was selected for this mission, since he looked very much like a Pole and wasn't afraid to go. So he started to walk in the middle of the night to a village its exact location he didn't know, in order to meet a person whom he didn't know, in order to try to persuade him to hide a group of Jews from the Nazis.

The eldest of the Sternberg brothers indicated that Konarski lived in the first house of the village. Władek arrived at the house and found Leon Konarski. He started telling him the story, but the fisherman told him to get inside the house first. Once he heard the whole story, Leon told Władek that they were willing to help the Jews, but that he can't do it himself, since he lived in the first house of the village. He pointed at a hill which was right across the window, very close to the house, where a German post was situated. It was impossible to hide in this house.

Leon told him to go back to the house where the rest of the group were staying and to give him its address, and promised he would send his brother Edek there. Władek stayed at Leon's house two days, since he couldn't travel during the day.

Eventually, Władek came back to the basement and delievered the message to the other members of the group, who had already began to think that he was dead. Władek explained that they should wait for someone who would take them. They decided to use a password ("razor blade") in order to make sure that the man who was supposed to come come was really Edek. After a few days, a guy named Edek arrived at the house where the group was hiding, and started speaking in Polish with the Polish landlords about razor blades. The group heard what he said, and they went outside in order to meet him. They realized that this was the person who was supposed to take them to Mirow. He had to take them one by one or in pairs, for safety resons, so he took the Sternbergs first (they were the people who knew his father). He took one of the Sternberg brothers or both of them, and the rest waited for him to come back.

They waited for a few days and nobody came back. They thought that the Konarskis would now send the Germans to their hideout. So they decided to send Władek to Mirow again, in order to check why nobody was coming. Władek arrived at Mirow and asked Edek why wasn't he coming to take them. Edek explained that the situation was not simple, and told him not to worry - he promised that he would come to take them.

Finally, Edek arrived and brought them all to his house and hid them in the wooden attic. The group stayed at Edek's house for around 6 months. He was single, and had a girlfriend who lived on the same street. He was just over 30. The house was relatively small and the group complained that the attic was too crowded for them all. As a result, Edek decided to move them to his sister's house, Władysława Mermer (Mermerka), who lived right across the road, in the house opposite to Edek's house. The group hid at Mermerka's house for another year and a half. Altogether the group were in hiding for a period of 22 months.

Mermerka was around 30 years old and had a son named Miłosz, who was then 12-13 years old and a daughter, who was then 9 years old.

One day, when the group was still staying at Edek's house, a German came and wanted to go up to the attic to take some hay for his cow. Wanda, Edek's wife, pushed him aside from the ladder, as if she was joking with him, and suggested that she will bring him down the hay herself. Taking this huge risk, she avoided a fatal encounter between the German and the group.

The document above: Chaja's testimony and a request to recognize Edek as a Righteous Gentile.

Edek was the one who had actually taken care of the group. He used to come every day to Mermerka's house, go up to the attic using a ladder and bring them two buckets: one for excrement and urine and the other with drinking water. They had neither toilets nor a shower, so they didn't wash. They didn't change their clothes. They had to constantly take out the lice from one another's bodies. The attic was only 1.20 meter high at its highest point so they couldn't stand upright. Their only source of air were cracks in the wall. In the winter, when the temperature was about 30°C below, their only heat source (except using each other's body heat) was stacks of hay they covered themselves with (they didn't have any blankets).

The document above: Chaja's request to recognize mermerka as a Righteous Gentile.

They didn't go out of the attic at all. They had to whisper all the time and keep quiet as much as they could. When Mermerka and her family were entertaining friends the people at the attic had to be extremely careful. Moreover, Edek and Wanda's wedding took place in Mermerka's house, so they couldn't speak nor walk around, since it made noise. The attic in Mermerka's house was more spacious than Edek's attic, and the walls were made of stone.

Shown in the picture above: Edek Konarski's attic. The pot on the right side of the picture is probably a pot that was used for excrements. You can see that the man in the picture can't stand upright.

The document above: Certificates by Yad Vashem recognizing Edek and Mermerka as Righteous Gentiles.

Edek used to buy the people in the attic some food every day. He had no money. It was a small place, and it was impossible to go every day to the same grocery store and to ask for large quantities of food which would seem unreasonable for a single man. Therefore, Edek went to town and to the villages nearby every day and visited different food stores, collecting food from different stores every day.

Shown in the document: Righteous Gentile Certificate granted to Edek Konarski and his wife, Wanda.

Despite Edek's efforts, the group had just a small quantity of food for 9 people per day. They would fight over that. They had to share a slice of bread between them. As a result, Edek brought them a small scales, and then they could divide the slice of bread equally.

Edek didn't pay the money for the food from his own pocket. Władek and Leon would go down the attic into the kitchen at nights to make candies like they used to make in the factory. Once a month, Władek would go with Mermerka's son, Miłosz, to the city to sell the candies .Władek was the only one who got out of the attic.

In fact, the "selling of candies" was just a cover story. As Władek didn't have any money in złoty, he would go to town in order to change money.He had money in dollars, gold coins and bars. He would go to the big ghetto - the area in town where the Jews used to live before they were transferred to the small ghetto - and enter a coffee shop where the candies from the factory were sold. The owner of the coffee shop was a lady who was a long-time friend of the Jurysta family. She was buying the merchandise from the factory for years. This lady changed Władek's money. This money was then given to Edek in order to buy them food.

The document above: A thanks letter in Hebrew and in Polish from the Hoffman and Jurysta families which was read in the ceremony of granting Righteous Gentile Certificate to Mermerka.


Righteous Gentiles didn't receive any material compensation for hiding Jews. The money the Jews gave Edek was just in order to buy them food. No one knew that the family had a lot of money. They didn't trust anyone. Their Polish saviours thought that Władek went to town in order to get money by selling candies. Sometimes Władek would go to town with Miłosz without changing any money, just in order to make Edek think that he didn't have any money and that he had to go to town in order to get it. (Władek went there like a Polish villager would go, without any certificates).

When they first came to Edek's house, the members of the group presented themselves as holding respectable professions, like a lawyer, doctor, professor etc. They thought it would give Edek another reason to hide them in his house, because it would be a great honor for him to hide such respectable people.

When the war ended in that area, in February 1945, the Poles told them that the area was liberated, that the Soviets were there and that they could go out of the attic. However, their legs couldn't carry them. They couldn't speak, as for two years they constantly whispered.

After they were liberated, they came back to the street where they used to live before the war, but they found out that Poles took over the place. So, they went to Władek's father's house, which was in the Polish area. A Russian guy was living in there, and they got him out of the house and all of the 9 people lived there.

Afterwards, each member of the group found his own course and chose a different direction. There was no point to stay in Czestochowa, since there were very few Jews left. Only Poles and Russians were living in the city.
So Chaja and Władek didn't stay a long time in Czestochowa. They moved to South Germany (on the border with Austria), to a refugee camp which was built by the Americans. They lived there for a year, and their first daughter, Hadasa, was born there, on December 9th, 1945.

The document above: Military Government of Germany, Temporary Registration of Chaja Hoffman as a refugee, October 1945.

Shown in the pictures above: Chaja and her first daughter, Hadasa, in the refugee camp in Germany, 1946.

In 1946, they came to Paris, to Chaja's cousin's (Brunia) house, who had been living there before the war. The Hoffman family stayed there for another year.

Shown in the picture on the right: Brunia, Chaja's cousin, Paris, France.

In 1947, they received a certificate approving their immigration to Palestine.
This was a result of the efforts of Chaja's brother, Ya'acov, who immigrated to Palestine in 1922, and settled in Bat Galim neighborhood in Haifa. Once Ya'acov heard, after the war ended, that Chaja and Władek were in Paris, he wanted them to come to Palestine. Both Ya'acov and the Muchtar (head of a small town or a village) of mount Carmel, wrote a statement confirming that Ze'ev Hoffman was allegedly born in the city of Tzfat (i.e. he was born in Palestine) in 1914. He supposedly left the country with his parents during the first World War for Germany and then moved to Poland, so now he wanted to come back home to Palestine.

Consequently, Władek immigrated to Palestine by ship, and the British authorities accepted him without making any trouble (since he was allegedly born in Palestine). Three months later they let the families come to Palestine as well, so Chaja came to Israel with Hadasa, and they all met in Haifa.

Shown in the document on the right: Ya'acov Jurista's request to let Władek "return" to Palestine, which he sent to the Aliyah and Immigration Department in Palestine.

Shown in the document above: An approval from Kneset Israel, Commitee of the Jewish Community, determining that Władek was "born" in Palestine.

Only three of Chaja's brothers and sisters survived the war. Ya'acov, the one who immigrated before the war and settled in Haifa; Leon, the brother who was hiding with her in the attic, and Avraham, who lived in Paris since the early 1920s. He met a Christian French woman and married her, and hid there. He got married in a monastery, and they had a son. He was a photographer.

Chaja and Władek moved to Kfar Ata (near Haifa, Kiryat Ata today, see the map), where they rented an apartment from the Greenblum family. They lived there between the years 1947-1955. On January 1st, 1953, their son Moshe was born. He was named after his grandfather (Chaja's father).

Shown in the ocuments above: On the left - Władek's Identity Card, Israel (Palestine), May 1947. On the right - Chaja's Immigrant Certificate - July 1947.

Chaja and Władek left Kiryat Ata and moved to Haifa (see the map) in 1955. In Haifa she worked together with her brothers Ya'acov and Leon in Ya'acov's ice cream factory. Władek passed away on December 5th 1975, at the of age 61 (born May 7th 1914). Chaja lived there until 1996. After that, she moved to a protected accomodation in Ra'anana, where she lives nowadays.

Chaja's daughter, Hadasa, lives in Ra'anana. She is married to Giora and has three children. Oran, the eldest, is 39 years old. He is married and has three daughters - Gal, Liron and Adi. Yaniv, the second son, is 37. He is married and has a boy, Nave, a girl, Gefen, and his wife is pregnant with another baby daughter. Hadasa's youngest son is Ziv. He is 32 years old and got married six months ago.

Chaja's son, Moshe, lives in Petach Tikva. He works in the bank. He is married to Ronit, a teacher, and has three children. The eldest, Gal, is 31 years old. She is married and has three children - Shira, 2.5 years old, and twins (a boy and a girl), Alon and Noa, six months old. Moshe's second son is Eyal. He is 28 and married his wife Adi a year ago. The youngest son, Ofir, is 22 years old.

All in all, Chaja has two children, six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren (and another one on the way). This big and expanding family is alive today due to the courage and devotion of the Konarski family.

Chaja nowadays

Shown in the pictures above: Chaja and her son, Moshe; Chaja and I

The lives of Chaja and Ze'ev (Władek) Hoffman, Sarah and Arie (Leon) Jurysta, David and Rachel Schlesinger and three of the Strenberg family were saved thanks to the courage and generosity of the Konarski family.

Relatives:

Code: RelatioNet HO MO 53 PE IS
Family Name: Hoffman First Name: Moshe Middle Name: Zvi
Father Name: Ze'ev (Władek) Mother Name: Chaja
Relationship (to Survivor): Son
Birth Date: 01/01/1953
Status (Today): Alive
Address Today: Petach Tikva, Israel
Email: ronithof1@walla.com

Code: RelatioNet JU ME 47 RA IS Family Name: Jurysta First Name: Menachem Father Name: Arie (Leon) Mother Name: Sarah (Stepha) Relationship (to Survivor): nephew Birth Date: 1947 Status (Today): Alive Address Today: Ramat Hasharon Email:

Important note: This blog might be subjected to changes, additions and editing, and therefore it is not in its final form.

Czestochowa

Częstochowa is a large city of 160 sq km and around 260,000 inhabitants in south west Poland, on the Warta River. It is a major railway centre, but above all Poland's religious capital. The city is the capital of Czêstochowa Province.

Czestochowa was established in the 11th century. The city is known for the famous Paulist monastery of Jasna Góra, on a hill overlooking the city, that is the home of the Black Madonna painting, a shrine of the Virgin Mary. Every year, millions of pilgrims from all over the world come to Częstochowa to see it. Czestochowa is also the seat of the Bishop.

Czêstochowa is a major industrial city. The principal industries include iron and steel, textiles and paper, and a trade in religious articles is centered here.

Shown in the picture: Town Hall

Shown in the pictures: The Black Madonna, Jasna Góra Monastery

A Jewish community developed in Czestochowa from the beginning of the 19th century. It quickly grew bigger due to the deposits of coal and steel around it, which brought to a development of a diversified industries in the city.

At the eve of World War II there were 28,500 Jews in Czestochowa (20% of the population). The city was occupied in September 3rd 1939 by the Natzis, who began a series of abuses against Jews which took the lives of 150 Jewish men.

In April 1941 a ghetto was built in the city. 20,000 more Jews were deported to the ghetto from the neighbouring area, as well as from Kraków and from the cities of Wesern Poland. Most of the Jews in Czestochowa were murdered between September and October 1942, in a mass deportation to Treblinka extermination camp.

The Jews remaining in the city were employed in forced labour. Rebellion attempts of Jews from an underground organization in January and June 1943 failed. Hundreds of Jews were shot on the spot or sent to Treblinka.

In January 1945, Czestochowa was liberated by the Red Army, and only a minority of the Jews (around 3,000) survived. A Jewish community existed in Czestochowa after the war , but most of the Jews left the city and immigrated to Israel or emigrated to other countries.